Italy bus crash: competing theories over cause of deadly coach plunge

There were competing theories on Monday as to how a bus fell off a flyover in
Italy, with claims that it had been speeding, that it had lost parts of its
engine on the road and that a tyre may have blown out.

By Tom Kington in Monteforte Irpino, Campania

3:24PM BST 29 Jul 2013

39 dead after coach plunges off flyoverCause of accident unclear - driver killedSeveral children among the dead

In what has been described as one of Italy's worst road accidents, the bus crashed through a concrete barrier on a flyover in southern Italy and fell almost 100 feet into a ravine.

A motorway worker has claimed he saw the bus heading for the flyover at excessive speed with its front door open or broken, stated Italian news agency ANSA, which also reported that a component from the bus's engine was found by investigators on the road around a mile before the crash site.

Fire fighters called to the remote, rural spot near Monteforte Irpino in Campania worked through the night to recover bodies from the wreckage but also pulled 12 survivors from the twisted metal and torn seats of the coach, which was ripped in half by the impact and its roof torn off.

Related Articles

"All the survivors were conscious although two later died, including a women in her 30s who spoke to the police one moment then suddenly collapsed and died, perhaps of a haemorrhage," said one fireman.

Fire crew chief Alessio Barbarulo said a family of four had miraculously survived the 100 foot plunge. "They were not sitting together – it is just by chance they survived," he said. All survivors were being treated in local hospitals for serious injuries.

The passengers on the bus hailed from the town of Pozzuoli near Naples and had left their homes on Friday to visit a thermal bath and the home town near Benevento of Padre Pio, the popular Italian saint.

"These were families from council homes on a privately organised trip," said Father Paolo Auricchio, a priest from the area.

As lumps of loosened concrete threatened to topple from the flyover onto rescue workers as they searched the wreckage during the night, firemen used a crane to lift the bus to recover disfigured bodies as investigators set to work on discovering the cause of the crash.

Apart from the theory that the bus was losing parts and going too fast, one survivor of the crash told relatives the bus suffered a burst tire just seconds before it plunged off the flyover.

Vincenzo Rusciano, whose niece Annalisa was among the survivors, said she had told him the bus suffered a burst tire as it approached the flyover, which crosses between wooded hills and spans hazelnut groves above Naples. The bus careered wildly, crashing into cars on the flyover before slamming into, and smashing through the concrete barrier, leaving 15 motorists injured.

"My niece told me a left-side tyre of the bus burst. The driver tried to keep control in any way possible but could not manage and the bus swerved, ending up in the ravine," he said.

By dawn, rescue workers had lifted the lines of bodies off the road and hosed the blood away, and as the bus was taken away on the back of a flatbed truck.

By midmorning, all that remained in the ravine were rubber gloves used by rescue workers scattered in the fertile soil and a woman's shoe by the side of the lane that picks its way between the hazelnut groves under the flyover.

The bodies were taken to the school gym in the small town of Monteforte Irpino, where streams of relatives of the dead arrived to walk down lines of open coffins spread out beneath the basketball nets, identifying their lost family members.

After filing out of the gym, they sat in silent groups next to the school's climbing frame, under an awning erected to ward off the hot sun.

"It seems calm, but there is a lot of anger here," said Father Auricchio.

"I have lost my sister and her son – my wife just called me at work to tell me to come here," said Amadeo Musto, 56, whose body shook with silent sobs as he spoke.

"People here still can't believe what is happening," said Giuseppe Di Lorenzo, who had arrived to pay his respects to a childhood friend who died in the crash with the friend's wife and sister in law. "My wife should have been on the trip, but couldn't make it, and I thank God for that," he added.